


Slip

by knockturnali



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9904592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knockturnali/pseuds/knockturnali
Summary: Something between a fic and a character study, this work examines the slow (post-season two, pre-season three) decline of a rigid and withdrawn military man into something softer, more open, and rocking facial hair for the first time in his life.





	1. Day 1

At first he isn't needed in Medical, so once everyone in need of care has been moved inside and the procedures necessary to repair them move beyond his painfully basic understanding of it all, he goes. There are answers to give to those who had stayed behind. The sight of Abby being carried in on a stretcher had been enough to have the entire camp buzzing. It's more than a little jarring to leave the inside of the Ark, where he is nothing, and step outside, where half a dozen people flood right up to him. The others snap their eyes and ears in his direction. The questions come slowly at first, and they're generic. _What happened? Is Abby okay? Where's my son?_ He takes a slow breath to steady himself, lifts his hands to quiet them, and sets to work answering what he can.

In the end, they get a lot more out of him than he expected. Their inquiries are mostly harmless and totally earned, and the answers are easy. They don't know to ask about the hundreds of people Clarke killed to save her mother. Many of them have no idea what Mount Weather was, what it could have been for them had the inhabitants not become so warped that coexistence was out of the question.

_No, it wasn't,_ he counters himself, and suddenly his ability to answer their questions wanes. It's just as well; many of them have wandered off again to speculate on their own, his dry and militaristic view of the events not satisfactory to the general public. They want details he won't give, mostly because they are too fresh for him to relive them without much pain on his own behalf.

The drill, mostly.

He cannot stand to think about the drill.

The last of them goes and he watches her retreat. Her name escapes him now, but he remembers how he had begged the man making orders to let him convince his people - _his people?_ \- to donate bone marrow rather than forcibly extracting it. Marcus knows little more beyond common sense solutions to wounds, but he can only imagine that the procedure is painful and the side-effects unpleasant. There had been a _dead girl_ on the table before Raven, before Abby... dead from blood loss? From the shock of pain? He couldn't say, and that lack of knowing made his stomach twist painfully. He had wanted to inflict that on his - ... _these_ people in order to stop them from drilling into Abby's leg, and here he couldn't even remember one of their names.

The list of all of his shortcomings is getting long in his head, so he heads back into the remains of the Ark and heads for the chancellor's quarters, though technically that room is no longer his.

\---

Perimeter defense. Shifts of guard duty. Examination of the map to plan missions to gather supplies. These are the things he _can_ do, so he spends hours standing at the transparent board. There's a myriad of handwriting on it from those who are contributing. There are about four team leaders he's trusted to make the sketches themselves, those who have good enough spatial awareness to be accurate. The woods are a decent source of protein, though they've been warned against over-hunting. Marcus can sympathize with those who want to go out and drag in as much as they can - they're good with guns, and it's nice to do what one is good at - but the logic is sound. Eat the breeding pairs this season, no food next year.

A quick glance at Arkadia on the map brings a wry smile to his face. Most of that handwriting was at one point his. Now much of it is gone, and in place of what he had wanted to turn into watchtowers and lean-tos for the creation and storage of weapons, there were green squares. Gardens. She had planned a sustainable food option almost immediately; it was one of the first things she did. And everyone had rallied behind her, so he heard. Half a dozen of them were planted in that first day, with people forgoing water themselves to make sure the gardens had enough. (But she had a plan for water collection, too, and that was the second thing she did.) Part of him wished he had been in the camp to see it, but he had left quickly after turning over the pin to Abby.

There's a figure in the door, and his head turns quickly when he becomes aware of him. Bellamy has washed his face and changed his clothes, but he has not rested. There's a haunted look to him, a weight of exhaustion that Marcus knows well. For a moment they simply stand and look at one another, and then Bellamy is the one to speak.

"Clarke's gone," he informs him, and Marcus is scarcely able to keep his facial expression neutral as his stomach plummets through the floor. Confusion fills that hole in him, his mind reeling to know why his first reaction was not quite concern for the young woman but rather her mother.

"If you're looking for permission to go after her," Marcus begins, watching closely to analyze any response in Bellamy's face. After living a lie for sixteen years, though, he's stoic. Hiding a younger sister for almost two decades takes a good poker face, and Bellamy's is impenetrable. Marcus is impressed, but even as his heart warms a little he knows that what comes next is not what Bellamy wants to hear: "you don't have it."

They stand, silent. They look at each other. Again the neutrality in Bellamy's face makes it impossible for Marcus to guess at what he's thinking or feeling, but he has waited out more stubborn people in interrogations. He can wait -

"I wasn't looking for permission," Bellamy says simply, and Marcus's mouth dries. A response eludes him, though his instinct is to scold him. He blames it on their prior roles on the Ark, but the words that begin to course through his mind are not the words of superior officer. They are the words of a father. They carry weight, and love, and Marcus will not say them aloud.  
  
"I was hoping you'd tell the Chancellor."


	2. Night 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up. My plan is to update every Thursday, but I just had the Worst Week Ever at work and needed some time to recover. In my rush to get this chapter up I didn't spend three days combing it over, so please let me know if this is super noticeable to you and I'll be more diligent and timely going forward.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who took time to leave feedback on Chapter 1 and to anyone who feels so inclined after reading Chapter 2!

The task is not a difficult one: convey information to the Chancellor. Report. It’s as much a part of him as his brown hair or the way his senses narrow the second a gun is in his hand. Absorbing information, processing it, and deciding which details are the must crucial… it’s easy and it always has been.

But now the Chancellor is a mother, and the report is not about contraband or unrest.

When he walks into Medical, Abby is sitting upright in her bed, a tablet in her hands. She has more color in her face than before but her eyes are heavily lidded with exhaustion and what he hopes is pain medication. Her eyes lift to him after a delay, and her smile is welcoming. Small, practiced; the greeting of a leader, and also of someone accustomed to getting and giving bad news. The woman before him is every bit their Chancellor but even in something as small as this silent greeting she manages to retain traces of the other things that she is: widow, mother, doctor...

In his analysis of that smile he refuses to include the word friend, although he can’t help but wonder why Bellamy chose  _ him _ for this task. He might’ve chosen Jackson, who was much closer to Abby, or even Raven, who was closer to both of them. (He knew why: Marcus was the head of the guard, former Chancellor, and Bellamy had brought him this information because it wasn’t something the entire camp needed to know. Jackson, while busy in Medical, or Raven, recovering from a fair bit of exhaustion and trauma herself, might not have been steadfast options for Bellamy.)

His thoughts do not bring him pause. His boots squeak quietly against the floor, impossibly clean even in the perpetually messy environment that Earth had proven itself to be. It is more a sensation, the reverberation of sound waves up his ankles and calves, than an actual sound that he hears, but it makes him hyper-aware of himself, of how maybe he doesn’t belong in this kind of a place.

“How are-”

“Are you-”

They both stop a few words into their own questions; Abby’s smile blossoms and she lifts her chin a little. She takes it as a challenge, and he detects humor in her stare as she reads his own response to their blunder. He feels clammy, throat dry, palms slick despite running his fingers over them at his sides where she will not see them. His heart is fluttering, but not in a pleasant way. Racing and shallow, the beats make him wonder if anyone has ever died rather than saying something they do not want to say. Is the human body capable of that?

Even for him, it’s a little dramatic.

When he says nothing, Abby speaks up. “Are you checking up on me?” she asks, and the allusion is not lost on him. He allows his amusement to show in the lift at the corner of his own mouth and the single puff of a chuckle he exhales through his nose. His eyes dart from hers and land on the tablet, which she does not hide from him. There are various lines, some flickering, some still and un-moving. There are letters and words he can’t read from where he stands, but he assumes it to be the medical information of the others around her.

“No,” he replies after a pause, and he looks up again to find her brows high in disbelief rather than knitted together in confusion.

His tongue feels thick and heavy, but he knows that he has to tell her that her daughter is missing. He prepares to step in, to press a hand to her shoulder and keep her in the bed; he’s ready to remind her about her leg, her stitches - a line she’s barked at him half a dozen times. She’s always been proud of her work, and more than once he’s popped a stitch or two trying to get back to work and found himself on the receiving end of her scolding.

“Are you-”

“I’m-”

They stop each other again, and amusement lights into Abby’s face that Marcus can’t quite match. She notices, and her expression falls, all jest and goodwill evaporating. Now her brows come down low, and she begins to move the tablet to the side before he shakes his head and lifts his hand to press his fingertips to her wrist.

“I was,” he lies, and he is breathless as the implication settles in the hollow the words leave in his chest. Abby, too, appears startled, and he finds himself wondering if she knows he’s lying or if she simply suspects it. They were not the sort of people to check up on each other before, but neither of them was the Chancellor then. Though the title was hers now it hovered precariously on both of their shoulders, with each of them necessary to balance out the other. They were the only two people who had experience dealing with the demands of the role  _ on Earth _ and because of this Marcus felt obligated to stay by her and support her as best he could.

That is not why he hovers now, his fingers still against her wrist, the gentle warmth seeping into him having the opposite effect of what he’d hope for. Where it may have granted him strength or courage, it does not. She is warm and has always been this way: she radiates it, but on most days he had perceived her much as the sun. Most of the time it simply powered the ship, often hidden entirely from him. Once in a while the light would strike him unexpectedly, the movement of the Ark and the orbit of the Earth lining up in such a way that the ship would turn and for just a few seconds he would be blinded. The air around him would warm almost immediately, and in those moments after his initial shock he would stare at the particles of dust floating around him. Even in space there was always something… even with the scrubbers.

The sun would pass. The ship would turn. He’d find himself back in the artificial light and the air would gradually cool, and he’d go back to his day.

He moves his hand, but her fingers stop his. The ship does not turn. The sun does not pass.

“I had a thought about the gardens. Do you have a minute?”

He wonders what she sees when he looks back up at her: does she see the second his strength leaves him and he lets her coax him toward her, to peer down at the tablet and become aware of what the letters and lines had actually meant? Does she know that in giving him an out from admitting that he’s come to check up on her because she is too kind to force him to say something embarrassing that she has instead offered him another hour, another day even, to put off telling her that her child has chosen exile for herself?

It is well after midnight when Jackson finally comes around and Marcus realizes how late he has kept Abby up. He promises to relay her plans and nods to Jackson as he stands, smoothing his hands along the front of his pants to push the hems back to his ankles.

“Marcus,” comes Abby’s exhausted voice, but when he turns to look back at her it is Jackson’s warning frown that he sees first. “If you see Clarke will you ask her to visit her mother?”

He smiles, lashes fluttering, and he’s glad that the sun has passed - that the artificial light overhead is dim, probably by Jackson’s hand. “Of course,” Marcus promises, ducking his head down low as he leaves.


	3. Day 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this done for days and I forced myself to revise a lot, but I know we all have to suffer through hiatus week, so here you go!

It rains for two days straight, soaking everything outside and sending even the most resolute of gardeners into the halls of the ruined station. The air feels wet; the walls, the floors, even dry food feels moist on one’s tongue. It is a bizarre way to live, and when the population stirs on the second day the initial appreciation for precipitation has darkened into annoyance. Those who marveled at it the first day and ran out to feel water on their face, who sat around talking about gravity and climate and  _ enjoyed  _ themselves feel cramped and confined when it rains  _ harder _ in the morning. Half a dozen people are collecting it, but they’ve grown tired of their wet hair and faces when they come back in with bags, buckets, pots - anything that can hold water has been filled and the disinterest turns to annoyance overnight.

Marcus loathed it from the first droplets, though he wore his own displeasure under a thick veil of exhaustion and focus on his work. Guards stood their posts in the deluge so he joined them. It was only fair, after all, that he be willing to do whatever he asked them to do. By the second day he resents this quality in himself, but this, too, he hides.

The sun peeked through the clouds just before lunch, but it didn’t stop the rain. A temporary relief from the overarching displeasure was the sight of a rainbow which had each citizen pressed to the thick windows for a desperate glance. It didn’t last; soon it was back to the steady hum of water hitting the metal structure all around them. Some took to pacing throughout the ark, chattering loudly among themselves, while others (mostly the younger crowd) began to play games in the halls.

The switch from the first to second shift grants him a reprieve that he is eager to take. He waits for everyone to settle in under the meager shelters they have managed to scrape up to protect themselves from the rain, and promises to be back in a few hours to check in. It isn’t a promise he looks forward to fulfilling, but he knows that he will do it regardless. As if to justify the break he heads for the Chancellor’s quarters rather than to his own, where he may have changed into dry clothes and lain down for a nap. The chaos of the overused halls causes him to draw the door shut behind him, sealing himself off from everyone for the first time since the events of Mount Weather.

Shaking water from his hair and brushing it from his shoulders, Marcus paces toward the couch only to elect not to take a seat on it lest he soak the material. Instead he shrugs himself out of his jacket, draping it over the back of a dining chair. The long-sleeved grey t-shirt he always wears underneath is mostly dry, though the air alone makes him feel as if he has just stepped out of a bath. The muscles in his shoulders twitch and groan at the thought of being surrounded in hot water. He pushes the thought aside without letting it settle and darken his mood further.

\---

Had a clock begun to count down the amount of time he had truly to himself, he may have felt less embittered when a knock on the door interrupted his musings before the board. It felt like seconds but judging by how much he had written, erased, and re-drawn, he was sure it had been the better part of an hour. Digging his thumb in against the inner corner of one eye, he used the other to open the door.

He had expected Bellamy, or maybe even Jackson. Hell, any number of adults came to mind, too, but not -

“Abby?”

Her name burst out of him before he could remember to address her properly. The sight of the crutch she was leaning on did not ease the irritation that flashed through him at her presence - being  _ here _ meant she wasn’t in Medical where she should have been resting. If she felt inclined to correct him she didn’t, her weight leaning forward slowly until one foot could shuffle out for a single step toward the room… toward  _ him. _ His reflexes kicked in and he stepped back, to the side, and watched as she dragged herself into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Let me see what you’re working on,” came her light demand. If she was hurting she was careful to keep it from her voice: he listened closely for it but didn’t hear anything resembling pain. Resolve, yes. A dare, too, for him to ask her what she was doing or tell her what she  _ should _ be doing.

“Only if you sit,” he insists, and for two or three long beats she stares up at him, thin lips pressed firmly into a line. He doesn’t waver. Just when he thinks he will have to open his mouth to tell her again, she suddenly cracks into a small smile and nods. He takes a step after her to help her to the couch but her arm flies out to stop him. The sides of three fingertips press into his torso, approximately where his diaphragm is, her head snapped to the side so she can glare at him over her shoulder.

“I’m sitting,” she warns him, and he lifts both hands in surrender, unsure if his face looks as amused as he feels. He wonders briefly how Jackson works with her every minute of every day; how Jake had lived with her every minute of every day; how Clarke - 

Abby isn’t psychic but he doesn’t risk thinking about her absent daughter in her presence.

Her hand falls away and he moves to the board, placing the clear barrier between them to further assure her that he won’t run over to help her sit (though she struggles visibly, and he wants very much to help her). When she finally settles and rests the crutch against the couch next to her, he watches the hand that she uses to massage her thigh. There’s a bulk to the limb that isn’t present on the other, so he can only assume that Jackson has wrapped it to protect against anything that might be carried in moist air. His analysis of this makes him slow; he doesn’t realize that her fingers have stilled until she clears her throat softly and his eyes flick up to find hers already trained on his face.

“What’re you working on?” she presses, and he turns his attention to the board to gather his thoughts and answer her.

\---

Talk of gardens and food supply doesn’t last long before they’re simply conversing about the rain, about the noise in the halls, about how the moisture might affect Medical or Engineering. She sits and he stands, and though the clear board remains between them he feels as if there is nothing keeping them apart. At one point something he says makes her laugh. The sound echoes off of the metal surfaces in the room but he swears they are not actually  _ anywhere _ . There is no place and no time, just the sound of her laughter covering the faint brush of her fingertips over the fabric of her pants. She’s been massaging her leg on and off the entire time, and though he tries not to look he can’t help but notice.

The pain medication begins to wear off, and the color seeps from her face. He can see that she pushes her teeth together, and her sentences become clipped. There is no hope for laughter, but she pushes the conversation until the sight of her squirming becomes too much for him.

“You should get back to Medical,” he interrupts a not unpleasant silence and moves to the end of the board as her narrowed eyes come up to him.

“I’m fine. I’d like to stay here,” she replies and he shakes his head right away, resolute as he moves over to her. He extends both hands, palms up, eyes hard against hers.

“I’m already in for a Hell of a reprimand when we get you back. The longer you’re gone the worse it’ll be.” He thinks his logic is sound, and that he has won when Abby’s palms slide over his so her fingers can curl around his wrists. His own grip is firm but not too tight - he lets her pull herself up rather than trying to force her up himself. She knows her limits, she knows what her leg can handle.

Or so he thought. Whether by her innate stubbornness to not allow him to help her or having simply forgotten the severity of her injury, Abby puts weight on her leg to try to turn and reach for the crutch herself. Her gasp swallows up his own as her weight pitches into him. Her cheek collides with his sternum. The hand that had left his arm locks into the material of his t-shirt and his skin blazes where her nails grazed the underlying skin as her fingers made a fist full of fabric. The ball of her fist presses in against his ribcage. He freezes, his own hand suspended in the air a few inches below her arm.

They are both silent and unmoving, the sound of rain on the structure around them drowning out the sound of his own breathing, though he knows he has not yet drawn in a breath. Finally she shifts and angles her face away from his chest, and he moves immediately to reach for the crutch himself. Without looking at her he positions it under her arm and keeps a firm hold on it until she wraps her own fingers around it. The rest of her weight leans away from him, and when their bodies no longer touch he notices immediately the stretch of cold where her warmth had been.

He  _ swears _ her cheeks are pink when she turns to take her first shuffled step toward the door. For a second he thinks of letting her go on her own so the both of them can recover from whatever that had been, but no sooner does that thought occur to him than another takes its place. Swiping his wet jacket from the back of the chair nearby he shrugs it on as he follows her into the hall.

“Marcus-”   
“-  _ Chancellor _ , I insist.”


	4. Night 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay on this. Season four has been a major drain on my inspiration for Marcus. This chapter happened because evo101 left me a comment asking for an update. I'm sure I speak for many fic writers, perhaps out of turn as I sit here with my one fic, in saying that THIS is how you encourage us to continue what we do. Thanks, evo101, and thanks to everyone who reads this chapter! I hope to get back to updating regularly.

The walk that carries them back to Medical is longer than it should be. Marcus thinks of this as they struggle around yet another bend in a hall and Abby, close to his side but not quite touching him, tries to hide a grunt of pain behind her teeth. There is nothing he could do to make this easier on her, and he knows without devoting a moment’s thought to it that she wouldn’t want him to. He keeps his distance, and they maintain silence… they just walk together. 

It isn’t until a crudely formed ball of what is probably scrap material from one of the damaged parts of the ship suddenly careens down the hall that Marcus does move closer to her, some bizarre instinct making him want to protect her from a harmless but unexpected object. It is just a shuffle of his weight, and utterly harmless, but when the voices from up the corridor hit his ears he feels the cloth of her shirt in his palm and realizes with a jolt that he has grabbed her elbow to push her sideways toward the wall. She resists at first, but he is insistent; he nudges her again and she hops, her free hand flying out to brace herself against the metal as she approaches it. What will probably be a scold parts her lips but then the kids arrive. A group of five teens, laughing, cheering, shoving each other, tear past them, one managing to kick the ball far off down the hall to the groans of his peers. Marcus is glad to have moved her aside if only to prevent one of them from slamming into her, though the entirety of his frame had remained in the way anyway.

He lets go and steps back away from her just as he realizes how stupid the entire thing was, but when he looks at Abby’s face that regret melts right away. Her face is bright and amused, turned after the retreating backs of the kids. It is the expression of a mother, of a pleased parent, and no sooner does his chest swell with affection at observing this side of her, it caves when he remembers that her daughter is out in the torrential downpour. With his eyes lowered he steps back even more, one hand extended toward her elbow as an offering for help that they both know she won’t take. And she doesn’t. But she does shuffle away from the wall, adjusting her crutch as she goes, and they resume their slow pace.

\---

She doesn’t let him help her onto her bed, and he isn’t surprised or hurt by this. Instead he waits, and she passes the crutch to him as some sort of peace offering. Of course he takes it and leans it against the nearby wall, and takes his seat on the stool next to her. Jackson is not in the room; Marcus is spared a scolding for now.

“Clarke hasn’t been by,” Abby says after she has settled herself. Marcus looks up just in time to catch sight of her pressing a needle into her elbow, a sight which makes his stomach lurch severely within him. He isn’t squeamish about blood or needles… or, he thought he wasn’t. It unsettles him even though she does it without a sound of discomfort, her expert fingers completing the task quickly and then gripping the sheet beneath her to help her shuffle into a comfortable reclined position. “Marcus,” she presses, and he looks up sharply as he realizes that he was staring. Shaking his head, blinking rapidly, he offers her a bewildered look and begins to scramble for a lie.

“I haven’t seen her,” is the truth, though, and it makes him feel only marginally better. Concern darkens Abby’s face and he can see a dozen questions forming, so he sits up straight and reaches for her wrist, touching it gently. “But I haven’t been looking,” Marcus adds, and again - unfortunately - it is true. “I was working on the garden project you…” she waves him off, so his voice trickles to nothing, eyes trained on her face. “I’ve just been busy, Abby, but I’ll look for her tomorrow at breakfast.”

She smirks at him so suddenly it almost knocks him from his seat. His hand draws back, gripping his own knee to help him stay on the chair (and, he realizes, massaging the joint that is throbbing dully, probably thanks to the rain). His brows come together and he lifts his chin to ask what the face is for, but her eyes drop from his to… to what? His nose? His mouth? The thought tenses his spine and he is suddenly incredibly self-conscious of his breath, of the movements of his lips as he tries desperately to keep them still under her scrutiny. 

“I can tell you’ve been busy,” she points out, and her eyes slide slowly up to his. He can feel them move over each pore, each inch of him, and his spine aches to shudder and get the tension out. “You haven’t even had time to shave.” They stare at each other for a long and silent moment before Abby’s face splits into a smile and Marcus, unable to fight it off, matches her.

“Yes, well, maybe I’ll take care of that before breakfast,” he offers, but she only shrugs at him. Before he can process what exactly that means, Jackson is practically on top of him, in his face, his quiet syllables rapid and furious. Marcus barely manages to scramble out of the chair, hands lifted in defense; behind Jackson, Abby is laughing and trying to reach for the younger man, assuring him that everything is fine, and that Marcus had nothing to do with her escape from Medical.

\---

The next morning he stands at the old and dirty mirror in the tiny, cramped bathroom attached to the Chancellor’s quarters, There’s an old razor in one hand, but even as he looks at the dull blade and knows it’s going to hurt to drag it over his jaw. This, along with that tiny shrug of Abby’s, causes him to hold the razor down to his side and lift his other hand, two fingers grazing the stubble dusting his cheek. The shrug flashes in his head again and the razor falls; he does not spare it even a disdainful glance as he leaves the bathroom to head for breakfast, where he knows he will not see Clarke Griffin.


End file.
